


Workaround

by entanglednow



Category: Sirens (UK)
Genre: M/M, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-01
Updated: 2011-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-23 07:08:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/247573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which loopholes are discussed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Workaround

"Celibate?"

Ash nods. "That's what he said."

"Fucking lunatic," Stuart decides around a Snickers. He glares through the windscreen, and chews while he absorbs that piece of information. "I mean it's probably an acceptable life choice if you've never had much interest in the first place. But going from a baker's dozen a week to _nothing_ , and then expecting that to stick. That dirty bastard seriously thinks he's going to spend the rest of his life voluntarily living under the 'no penetration,' rule."

Ash uncrosses his arms long enough to hold his hand up, count out points on his fingers. "No orgasms, no penetration, no _kissing_."

"Since when does kissing count as sex?" Stuart doesn't approve of moving the goalposts on a whim. Not unless it's him doing the moving.

Ash lets his head rock forward once, to make a point. "It's sexual contact, with another person."

"So's a fucking handshake if you want to stretch the definition that far," Stuart complains.

"You can't really call yourself celibate if you're tongue-fucking someone on the street."

Stuart exhales irritation. Ash has a point.

"So, that counts as penetration then. No penetration with anyone else, oral or otherwise, and no orgasms." He shakes his head. "He's going to be knifing someone in the face within a month. It's official, radiologists are all fucking mad." Stuart fills his mouth full of chocolate, scowls at the world at large, and _people_ in general, who thoroughly deserve it. Ash drums his boots against the floor while Stuart chews, waiting for his brain to finish wondering how humanity ever got out of the trees, considering its baseline stupidity. "You know that he's making the same mistake everyone makes, with celibacy, they throw themselves in, they go cold turkey. They don't _wean_ themselves off slowly."

"Give themselves time to grieve, you mean," Ash says, head leant against the back of the seat, hair curling over it, like it's always on the verge of making a break for it.

"Exactly. They should do it in stages. Go all the way from fucking, down to oral, over the clothes touching, kissing -"

"Sahara desert," Ash finishes.

"Exactly." Poor bastard, poor, deluded bastard.

"Of course then you have to live the rest of your life like that," Ash says slowly, painfully, like he's actually thinking about it.

Stuart pulls a face at Ash's expression. "He's not going to last the rest of his life."

"But if he did -"

"He won't," Stuart insists. "And even if he did, there's always a loophole."

Ash sighs. "You think everything has a loophole."

"That's because it does. Everything's designed to have a loophole. The universe laughs every time we bring up the word impossible, you know. There is no impossible. Everything has a loophole, you just have to be smart enough, or desperate enough to find it."

Ash's head rolls on the seat. Fixes in his direction, one eyes closed, and Stuart can read the ' _go on then, dazzle me_ ,' easily enough. A challenge, is it? Fine. Stuart thumps the heel of his palm against the wheel for a minute, brain turning it over.

"Ok, so you find something vaguely dirty that doesn't involve penetration. Something so you didn't feel like you were missing out completely...like spanking."

Ash's eyebrow twitches, and then lifts in argument. "Spanking doesn't count?"

"If spanking counted as sex, then my early school years would have been a lot more traumatic and disturbing," Stuart says.

"I think once you're consenting adults it counts as sex." 

"Why?" Stuart demands instantly. "Why does it count as sex?"

Ash opens his mouth, frowns, shuts it.

"Loophole," Stuart says firmly when Ash can't provide a meaningful answer.

Ash sighs and gives in. "Fine, it's a loophole. It's a quasi-sexual act between two consenting adults, which doesn't break the celibacy rules. But what if it's not your thing?"

"Beggars can't be choosers," Stuart says firmly. "And of course it's your thing. I've seen your arse."

Ash laughs, expression for a moment unsure whether to be offended or not.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Stuart pulls a face, because it's obvious. "It means you have one of those arses that's just begging to be smacked. That revoltingly fake air of innocence and smugness that suggests you secretly wants to be put over someone's knee. Hair that pretty much signposts your intention to misbehave until someone makes you stop. Put that together with the relatively high score your arse ranks on the spankability scale and -"

"How high?"

Stuart sighs, because some people just can't help but _interrupt_ when he's trying to make a point.

"Maybe a seven." He nods. "Yes, a seven, though that's the opinion of someone who doesn't generally notice the arses of other men."

Ash's eyebrows seems to be questioning why this is something he's put a lot of thought into, for someone who claims no interest.

"Give me a break, do you have any idea how many hours I sit on my arse bored out of my fucking skull. You'd be ashamed of some of the things I've considered in passing, just to stop my own brain from eating away at itself."

"Like what?"

"Terrible things." It sounds like a warning, which he never intended but it's probably for the best.

"Like what?" Ash insists.

Stuart flatly refuses to play that game, on the grounds that it will fucking incriminate him.

"I could live with a seven," Ash says eventually. He rolls his head on the seat. "So you find someone - like a fuck buddy, only without the fucking."

Stuart's already shaking his head, because that's another mistake. People don't think these things through, that's where it all goes wrong, that's where it all comes crashing down, and then there's tears, and no one's talking to anyone ever, ever again. "No, absolutely not someone you'd pick as a fuck buddy. Because then there's always the danger that you'd fuck them. One moment of weakness, one moment where they forget what they're doing and why, and you're balls deep in...wherever you're not supposed to be balls deep."

"And off the wagon," Ash agrees, nodding seriously. Because Stuart is right, he knows he's right.

"Yes. You want someone who's not going to enjoy it. Someone who's going to view your naked arse with apathetic disinterest. Otherwise they'd have the same problem as you. They'd have you stretched out, naked, willing to do fucking anything because you're the poor deluded bastard who thinks they can live the rest of their life without sex, and what are you? How the fuck are they supposed to concentrate? You can't be what they need if you want to fuck them."

"It's a disaster waiting to happen," Ash agrees, like he's seen the light. That's why Stuart's here. To show people the light, to shove their face in it if necessary, until they're weeping and blinded. Because someone fucking has to.

"Apathetic disinterest," Stuart says with a firm nod. "And I'm a fucking professional at apathetic disinterest."

Ash is forced to nod agreement, because it's true, he is. "You are."

There's a moment of Zen-like contemplation. Stuart screws up the wrapper to his Snickers, and tosses it somewhere in the back.

"So, you'd bring your apathetic disinterest to bear on my arse?" Ash asks, slowly and deliberately.

"I'm not saying I'd be jumping at the chance," Stuart says with a frown. "But if you phoned me up in the middle of the night. Say you're having some sort of crisis - and I had nothing better to do - I could probably make the time. You know why...because I have a talent that other people don't."

Ash squints at him. "Viewing all human beings, and their relationships with a grubby sort of mixture of pity and disdain?"

Stuart nods. "Yes, absolutely, that - and now you're doing that face, like it's a bad thing. But you know damn well that in a crisis it's people like me, people that are capable of completely turning off their ability to give a shit about anything, that are willing and able to make the hard decisions. It's people like me that get things done."

"It's nice that you're using your powers for good," Ash says. Though Stuart has no trouble at all detecting the marshmallow-soft layers of sarcasm in that sentence.

Stuart grunts. "I wouldn't exactly describe your sex life as a humanitarian cause. But you're a mate, and so you get to take certain liberties with my time, when your life comes to a grinding, depressing halt and/or falls to pieces. So what are we doing, paddle or bare hand?"

"Bare hand," Ash says with a nod, and it's firm, like he's been thinking about it.

"You're not supposed to like it too much," Stuart complains.

Ash raises a hand. "By the rules you've set out I'm allowed to enjoy it, but I'm not allowed to reach any sort of meaningful stage of completion." He drags out the last few words makes them sound indulgent...pervert.

Stuart sighs, because _of course_ this would just be hard work for him. Everyone else gets to live out their desperate sexual fantasies and he gets to work for it. This is why friendship - by its very nature - is cruel and unfair.

"Still, it's nice of you to...give me a hand, in my hour of celibate need." Even Ash's accent is taking the piss now.

"That's the sort of innuendo-laced mockery that would leave you unsatisfied," Stuart warns.

"Technically I'm going to leave the encounter unsatisfied anyway," Ash reminds him.

"More unsatisfied, _more_ frustrated and unsatisfied because you can't help but resort to cheap jokes."

"Am I not doing this for the human element. So I don't live out my celibacy sad and alone. Aren't the cheap jokes a part of that?"

"I'm getting nothing out of this, I'm doing it in the name of friendship." Stuart's well aware how scathing he makes the idea sound.

Ash pulls a face, which is much the same as his usual face, only with more eyes and disbelief.

"Absolutely nothing?"

Stuart shrugs. "There'd be some sort of base level of involuntary arousal, I suspect. Some people forget that we're animals. They don't understand that the human body is stupid, and it will approve of sex wherever it finds it, no matter what flavour it is. Or how dirty, insane, or depraved."

Ash nods. "That's fair."

"So, ok, I'd smack you just long enough to turn your arse completely red."

Ash hums quietly. "Maybe a little past that."

"You're a greedy bastard aren't you?" It sounds like a complaint but Stuart isn't entirely sure whether it is or not. He doesn't like these moments of confusion at all.

Ash grins one of his distracted, dubious grins. "Meaningful stage of completion," he reminds him.

Stuart sighs and leans on the wheel. "This is my hand we're talking about here, and I still need to perform daily tasks with it. How am I supposed to do that if the repeated, and sharp connections against your arse have sent it completely numb?"

"How am I supposed to feel comfortable if you can just wander off whenever you get bored?" Ash is clearly unhappy with the terms they've negotiated.

"I've got the friction-warm curve of your arse in my hand, I think I get to say when we stop."

Ash doesn't talk for a long minute. Stuart frowns at a crack in the windscreen. He gets the feeling they're drifted from the point just a bit.

"Are you talking?" Ash asks eventually.

It takes Stuart a second to reel his mind back to where they drifted off from.

"Do you want me to talk, is that a thing?"

"It depends," Ash frowns into mid-air, then turns his head and fixes the look on Stuart. "You can spout some incredible fucking bullshit sometimes. You might kill the mood."

"Not full conversation then. Maybe just the occasional 'fuck,' and the odd derogatory comment concerning the fact that you're a dirty little slut."

"I...would not object to that," Ash says, after a moment's thought.

"Of course you wouldn't, and if you did object I'd pull your ridiculous overly-pampered hair."

Ash shakes his head, throat loosing something complicated and strangled.

"Too much?" Stuart guesses.

Ash makes an irritated noise, and nods.

"I'm pretty sure I'd fail at the whole 'no meaningful stage of completion' part right about then." Ash says slowly. He almost sounds surprised.

The ambulance jolts slightly when boots thud into the back of it.

"What are you talking about?" Rachid asks, looming like a giant puppy between the seats.

"Celibacy," Stuart says.

"Celibacy," Ash agrees with a nod.


End file.
